labor day 2010: mt. st. helens

This has been a weird week. I think Labor Day threw me for a loop; I haven't felt very productive since we got back. In an effort to try and produce at least something tangible (well, "e-tangible" I guess, since this is a blog post), I'm going to finish detailing our mini-vacation.

And I have to add a historical point here, because when we visited Mt. St. Helens I couldn't help but wondering who was "St. Helens." I've heard of St. Helen, but not a "Helens." So...I looked it up. The peak was named in 1792 after Alleyne Fitzherbert, who was British Ambassador to Spain at the time and held the title "Baron St. Helens." (The explorer who named Mt. St. Helens was Captain George Vancouver. Although he chose fellow countryman Baron St. Helens as the namesake for this volcano, Vancouver chose to honor fellow British naval officers for other nearby mountains: Hood, Rainier, and Baker.)


On the way toward the Mt. St. Helens peak, we stopped at the Forest Learning Center, which is one of the visitor centers for the Mt. St. Helens park. This is a really great center, especially for kids. Sam was entertained by the exhibits and the "hands on" learning room for children. As you can see, they also have a mini helicopter for kids, which Sam loved.

There was a short nature trail near the center, which promised a "vista" to the valley below. The trail obviously was made several years ago, before the reforested areas grew back. When we reached the end of the path, this was our vista: trees. I guess we can't be too upset, though. We didn't have a marvelous view, but it's good to know that the forest is recovering from the volcanic blast. Nonetheless, I wouldn't really recommend this short walk to future visitors. There's many more interesting things to see and experience.

As we drove closer to the peak, it was really interesting to drive through the reforested areas because all of the trees were the same species, and all of the trees were exactly the same age. I never realized it before, but it's normal to observe lots of variety on mountain landscapes, with trees of different varieties and ages. It was weird to not see that usual variation on the mountainside. When we were driving through this area, it felt like we were in some virtual world with CGI effects - it was like we saw the same tree over and over and over...


Near the crater, we visited Johnston Ridge Observatory (which is the best place to go to observe the geological changes which have occurred since the eruption in 1980). A lot of the land around the volcano peak has been preserved since the eruption. Scientists don't want the land reforested or manipulated, because they want to observe the natural ecological/geological processes. For that reason, there is still a lot of the volcanic eruption. This image shows a ridge which is right next to the volcanic peak. If you click on the image, you'll see that the whole mountain is covered with trees that have been pushed over in the same direction (i.e. away from the volcanic blast). It was really strange to see many slopes covered with dead tree trunks that were all lying in the same direction.

The only disappointment of the trip? We didn't get a good glimpse of the crater itself, thanks to our ever-present Washingtonian clouds. Ah well. We want to come back and do some hikes in the area anyway, and I'm sure we'll get another chance to see the top of the mountain.

If you want to see some really cool photos of Mt. St. Helens before and after the 1980 eruption, go here. It's crazy to compare the two photographs at the beginning of the slideshow - the mountain looked so different beforehand.